Now it was Wylie’s turn. Sunday morning at the Parador del Convento in the central Mexican town of Guanajuato, and we were just about through the personal introductions. Linda, the nurse from Michigan who had spent two years in the Marshall Islands. Olga, the physical therapist from Santa Cruz who had recently been to Timbuktu. Pat and Leslie, the Portland couple whose last child had just gone off to college, though they looked as if they had stepped down yesterday from the throne of prom King and Queen.
Most were retired. Our group leader, John, who had led Global Volunteer projects in Russia and Mississippi. Leo, the public health official from San Antonio. The physician Jim and his nurse wife, Pat, from San Diego. The Minnesotans Othild, a pediatrician who grew up in Germany and recently lost her second husband, and Flo, a nurse who after retirement moved to Sweden for a year to learn the language. “I’ll settle down when I get old. I’m 70 now,” she chuckled. “I don’t think I’ll be old until I’m 80.”
There was Ren from Albany, taking an early leave as a public servant and spooning brewer’s yeast into his freshly squeezed orange juice. (“It’s a pain trying to stay healthy.”) And the English teachers Helen (“before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I want to do something so people will say, `Helen passed this way’ “) and Joann, whose current passion was Hungarian film.
An hour earlier, arriving into this clutch of superannuated do-gooders, I had wondered what in the world I’d gotten myself into. Now I questioned whether a week would be enough time to plumb their depths.
Wylie I already knew a little about because we had arrived on the same plane the day before. He was from Atlanta, having spent some time in New York City, and had a drowsy, intelligent regard. Back home he played piano in an Italian restaurant run by Cubans.
“I’m not doing this to save Mexico,” he said, after a rough summary of his life. “I’m doing this for myself. When I’m playing the piano, and my music touches someone, that gives me a tremendous feeling.”
Between explosions from the tunnel being blasted below, we had covered Global Volunteers’ history (founded in 1980 by a Minnesota lawyer), philosophical creed (“waging peace”), and policies (no gifts, no intimate physical contact with locals, no taking photographs for the first three days).
Ingrid from the university English department had briefed us on our duties. “You just talk to the students. You are like grandparents, who can enjoy them. We teachers are the parents, who have to correct them.” Then she explained the previous week’s festival of Day of the Dead and presented us each with a milk chocolate skull.
Now we were being asked to come up with goals, team goals, we were going to be a team. On the press release it had sounded so simple: “Volunteer to teach English in Mexico.”
John (whom Ren had already christened el jefe) asked us to write three personal objectives on separate Post-it Notes. Then he attached them to the wall in themed rows. Someone turned on the lights. I wondered what in the world I’d gotten myself into. After lengthy debate, we whittled our objectives down to three:
– Project a positive image of the people of the U.S.A. (Insensitive here to call ourselves Americans.)
– Learn about the country and its culture.
– Enhance students’ confidence with English.
John wrote them in magic marker under the overall goal that we had arrived at earlier through equally solemn deliberations:
– Have fun.
The minstrels gathered at the foot of the plaza, young men in leggings and puffed green and black sleeves. They strummed guitars and sang old ballads and then climbed the hill behind the church, leading dozens of people, including Ren and Olga and me. It was difficult to tell if the air was remarkably clear, or if this was simply our impression on finally being out in it. But the colonial city, rocked in its mountain cradle, crackled with hundreds of piercing white lights.
We wove up narrow alleyways, scraping against flat-roofed, boxy houses. A young couple snuggled on a stoop, shyly pretending for the sudden audience to be doing homework. (They received a royal minstrel razzing.) A tall man worked the crowd, dispensing long-necked flasks of sweetened wine. One by one, we squeezed through the crack in the houses called the “Alley of the Kiss.” At the bottom, a vendor stood hawking colorful sweaters.
“Alpaca from Peru,” he said.
“Shmata from New York,” Ren countered, pointing to his jacket.
An explosion woke me at 6, rattling the windows and shaking the parador down to its foundation. Work on the tunnel was progressing nicely.
Two hours later we gathered again in the meeting room. Yesterday’s casual wear had been replaced by skirts, pressed trousers, sensible shoes: a neat, well-groomed look for our first day of school. Though not everyone was looking chipper.
“Did you hear the blast at 3?”
“Oh, sure, the hammering had me up most of the night.”
John passed out our schedules, Linda gave the daily inspiration (a poem by Longfellow), Wylie read the daily journal (which we were to take turns writing). Then we walked, en masse, down the hill to the university.
“That’s where we’ll be spending our time,” said John, pointing cheerfully up to the top of the main building, an imposing stone tower whose base was flooded by a cascade of white steps. Then he led us around to an interior stairway. We took a breather in the second-floor cafeteria.
It was more of short-order grill with an umbrellaed courtyard. We were the only customers. A handsome, patient young man named Gustavo took our orders. He obviously had been expecting us.
Then the long climb to the top of the tower. Round and round, up and up a seemingly endless series of stairwells. Some of the older women halted, catching their breath in the doubly high altitude, before emerging into the even more rarefied air of the language center.
Leticia had wandered into the language lab, where I had been assigned for my first hours of teaching, though she had graduated in June with a degree in chemical engineering. She was continuing with English because she wanted to do graduate work in either the U.S. or England.
Pilar then joined us, a psychology student whose father was an engineer involved with the mines. (Guanajuato, because of its silver mines, was once one of the richest cities in Mexico; now only a few are operating, though the technology is still being used in the construction of the city’s underground streets.) She was worried about her afternoon test in English composition.
“It is for me the worst.”
Half past 2, down in the courtyard, Gustavo arrived with a pitcher of cucumber juice and the day’s menu: cream of cauliflower soup, chopped cactus, strips of beef with refried beans. The volunteers were voluble.
“I had the most fascinating group of students.”
“They’re all so eager to learn.”
“We got talking about the economic crisis.”
“Mine all knew about Proposition 187.”
Gustavo served the second course. “In the old days,” he said, “people used to eat this type of cactus as a means of birth control.”
“We won’t need it,” said Wylie.
Some of the health care group, who were teaching at the nursing school on the other side of town, arrived and pulled up chairs.
“What’s for lunch?” asked Jim.
“An old Mexican contraceptive,” said Ren.
Halfway up the tower, Flo was taking a break on a landing. “It’s harder on a full stomach,” she said. “More work for your heart.” She looked sweet and daffy in her floppy denim hat.
Othild soon joined us. “There are 96 steps,” she huffed. “That’s not counting the 100 or so before the tower.”
Up on the top floor, we ran into Pat and Leslie sitting on a bench in the hall. “This is really nice,” Pat said. “It’s been so long since I was in an academic environment, and I’m really enjoying just hanging out and talking to people. It’s something I never have time to do at work.”
“His students all think he looks like an astronaut,” said Leslie.
My afternoon session was in Larry’s class. Volunteers were either assigned to a teacher, who would divide the students into groups, or were given the lab, where we would make conversation with whomever walked in. Larry, a ponytail in earth tones, was from L.A. (one of many American English teachers at the university) and secure in his superiority over these trespassing tourists.
“This group’s pretty advanced,” he said, after dividing them up among Flo, Ren and me. “Just talk about whatever you want.” Then he left.
Victor, Norma, Lidia, Carmen and Lilian were delightful: students of international trade (the major of the moment), accounting, law. They looked young for college students (though Olga kindly pointed out to me later that this was because I was getting old) and innocent. They laughed and talked about their lives and asked questions about mine with large, dark, thirsty eyes. They seemed blissfully unaware of the ethic of “cool” (despite their teacher’s fine example) and youth’s de rigueur distaste for elders. Flo’s little huddle over in the corner seemed to be hanging on every word that spilled beneath the floppy hat.
The outdoor terrace of the Posada Santa Fe gives onto the main plaza where students and townsfolk promenade in the evening. The toylike trees form a sculpted green triangle, with benches and decorative tiles underneath. An old-fashioned bandstand sits in the middle, costumed men loiter with guitars, and runny-nosed urchins pester diners for pesos.
“She’s adorable,” said Helen, trying to ignore the imploring face now planted next to her lemonade.
Inside, Pat and Leslie were admiring the wood beams and historical tableaux. Pat walked over to the piano set against the wall. “I wonder if it still works? I’d love to get a piano for Wylie to play.”
The next morning we assembled in the cafeteria for our meeting. Despite the impressive number of medical complaints–headaches, sore throats, nose bleeds, gout, aggravated sinuses, sleep deprivation (work on the infernal tunnel was everlasting)–everyone was resolute.
Later in the day I saw an awestruck Wylie exiting a classroom. “I never knew,” he said, “you could have so many interesting conversations in broken English.”
And so it went. By midweek we were a team more through shared experience and sense of humor than through the magic markings of aims and objectives. No psychology of group dynamics, however ardently applied, could improve on Ren’s one-liners, or Olga’s elfish grin, or Joann and Helen’s happy anarchy, or Wylie’s priceless, deadpan observations.
Before leaving on this trip, I had wondered why people would pay to spend their vacation working. But it quickly became clear. Being a tourist is just as exhausting–all those obligatory churches and museums–and without the rewards. Working in a place gives you entry, connects you to the people, provides you with a routine–all the things whose absence makes sightseeing so unsatisfying. The town, because we had a purpose, took on a meaning: It was more than the 17th Century basilica and the Legislative Palace and the Teatro Juarez; it was Leticia and Ben and the receptionist at the parador and the staff in the cafeteria.
Six bottles of Sol beer stood on the table and, in the distance, a dozen women’s shoes hung above the bar. “Is a kind of fantasy,” said Gustavo. “You see, in theory, you can drink from a woman’s shoe.”
Friday night, the end of the school week, and Gustavo was showing us the town. We had settled on La Dama de las Camelias because of its Latin music and inspired decor; it was also one of the few places with people in it at 9 o’clock. Pat immediately noticed the piano; Gustavo, after an acceptable wait, asked the manager whether he could turn off the CD player.
Wylie, with some coaxing, got up to play. The first songs–’40s ballads–went unnoticed, though our table clapped appreciatively. Then he played “Ain’t Misbehavin”‘ and conversations stopped. When he finished, applause resounded. Requests poured in. Wylie was in demand.
He played for about 40 minutes. When he returned to his seat, amid loud applause, a man headed over from one of the far tables. “He is a professor at the law school,” Gustavo said, before going over to interpret.
“He thanks you for playing, and says those songs reminded him of his days in New York.”
Wylie, smiling, returned the gratitude, then helped himself to a bit of Sol.
DETAILS ON GLOBAL VOLUNTEERS
If you go: The two-week Global Volunteers project in Guanajuato (I stayed for only the first week) cost $995. This covered meals, lodging and ground transportation; air fare to Leon was separate. (The cost is tax-deductible.)
Global Volunteers has on-going projects in 13 countries, including Tanzania and Vietnam, as well as in the United States. The majority of them involve either English teaching or construction.
For more information: Contact Global Volunteers, 375 E. Little Canada Rd., St. Paul, Minn. 55117-1628; Call 800-487-1074.
